It's Stereophile's fault! LOL! Using Stereophile years ago I put this system together. Fast forward to today, and the Cal Audio CD drawer will not open. Would you repair the CD? Buy another CD player? Add a DAC (not sure what that even is?!!!!), start from scratch or ?????

All I can tell you is what I did when faced with a similiar problem on a moderately priced three year old out of warranty player.

I got an estimate of repair of $150. I determined it would cost me a minimum of $350 for an acceptable replacement player. Since I felt I would would like my repaired player better than the $350 new player, it was an easy decision to go for the repair. (I was using the CD player as a transport only, with an external DAC)

BTW- a DAC will not help you play CD's with a broken player. Maybe you're thinking of going in a new direction? That's your decision I think. There are a lot of factors I don't know about your situation

Although I like keeping most components a long time (e.g., I like my old Adcom amp/preamp still, and they just keep on working), I would replace that CAL player. The drawer doesn't work you say - and also due to its age most modern players will have a superior DAC and will sound better.

Most times I've had a Cd player repaired it broke again within about six months, so repairing Cd players, to me is a waist. Whenever something brakes now, I look at it as a great time to upgrade to something much better.

I haven't studied audio equipment for many, many years. Guess I should at least see what kind of CD player I could get and how much a quality one would cost. Recommendations welcomed!

I have an extensive collection of high quality CD's but am finding that more and more music is only available via download. How does one hook up something like an iPod to play music through the system? Is a separate DAC required? Into which component would the iPod be connected?

I'm a little bit in same boat as you...I have an extensive CD collection but digital tracks are so easy to acquire with huge online stores. Problem I'm having is that with the system I have put together - luxman CD player, NAD amp, Cambridge Audio DAC, and Wharfedale pro studio monitors with some custom floor standing speakers it is the highest end system I have had - it is tough to get digital media to sound as good as the CD player.I have a Sony google TV media box that I can stream or play lossless files through and while it sounds pretty good - it just doesn't sound like a CD from a quality CD player. That's my dilemma...I recognize the convenience and space saving of digital media but I want this system to sound as good as it can! I can hardly go playing mp3s when I know it would sound better via CD. So for now I have opted to stay with cds. I am sure there are expensive media servers out there that when playing a lossless file will sound as good as my CD player, but that's an expensive proposition and is relatively new and uncharted territory - whereas a CD player is a pretty well proven machine. That's my two cents anyhow;)

Consider getting an Oppo player. It will play any disc, not just CDs, very well and it has networking abilities that will allow you to access files stored on your own network as music streamed/downloaded from the Internet. The current BDP-103 is a good choice but the more expensive BDP-105 has superior DACs, analog stages and can be used as a DAC with any other digital sources. Welcome to the 21st Century.